The wooden pallet manufacturing industry uses wood as the main component of manufacture and greatly contributes to increasing deforestation afflicting the world.
In Argentina, for example, most of the native forests in the last 100 years have been lost, generating an environmental damage very difficult to recover.
It would be critical to give wood a highest purpose than making pallets that produce a greater added value (such as furniture, wood pulp, etc.).
The annual consumption of pallets for a country like Argentina is estimated in 2 to 2.5 pallets per capita, n developed countries this rate is twice or more.
It is estimated that of a pine or eucalyptus of 20 years old 7 pallets can be manufactured, as the wood waste in this production is great.
It is estimated that one hectare has an average of 1150 planted trees.
Consequently, in a country like Argentina with a population estimated at 44 million inhabitants, this implies a consumption of 88 million pallets per year.
Considering that for every tree seven pallets are manufactured, we will have 12,571,429 trees a year for the manufacture of pallets.
Considering a maximum of 1150 trees per hectare we will have a value of 10,931 hectares of forest per year consumed which are processed on pallets.
It is to be noted that in order to have trees grown and available every year, we need to have 20 times this area of growing forests, i.e., 218,633.5 hectares of forest are used for manufacturing pallets, which are mostly destroyed during the first year of use.
This area corresponds to 20% of total cultivated forests in Argentina (Source FEDERAL INVESTMENT COUNCIL). The same calculations can be made for other countries.
Therefore with a best economic use of wood, this important area of fertile land would be available for more productive purposes or to restore the necessary native forests.
Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industries are based on GMP standards which do not allow the reuse of a wooden pallet for not being sanitizable, which implies destruction of the same. In other industries as slaughterhouses, dairy, ice cream and food industries in general similar standards due to the sensitive material they produce should be adopted.
According to the above discussion, a way to contribute to the regeneration of forests as an ecology tool is to limit the use of wood to what is strictly necessary.
The types of pallets of the prior art considered herein are those disclosed by the following patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,774,490 A refers to a shipping unit comprising in combination a pile composed of courses of filled bags of oblong shape each course containing at least one bag disposed longitudinally along one side of said pile and another bag disposed between the inner side thereof and the opposite side of the pile and adjacent courses having a longitudinally disposed bag on opposite sides of said pile and a lifting skid located under the bottom course of the pile, said skid consisting essentially of a pair of parallel hollow tube members extending longitudinally under said pile and located centrally under said longitudinally disposed packages and having walls sufficiently rigid to support at least 25% of the weight of the pile and an internal size sufficient to receive the forks of a lift truck and a web connecting said hollow tubular members and having a length such as to support the central area of said bottom course when they are lifted. The web is connected to the members by an adhesive.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,036,802 A refers to a pallet to support a load comprising a sheet member having a plurality of pair of slots therein, a plurality of semi-cylindrical hollow members with a fork engaging channel, the semi-cylindrical members are fixed by strapping means through the slots of the sheet member.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,112,715 A refers to a non renewable foldable pallet adapted to occupy less space comprising a pair of substantially parallel open channels defined by rigid semi-cylindrical sections constructed of half-sections of cemented fiberboard tubes having a wall thickness of 0.1 to 0.5 inches and a horizontally oriented flexible supporting web adhesively attached to the convex outer surface of the semi-cylindrical channels; said semi-cylindrical channels can receive the forks of a lift truck to support loads on the web.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,418 refers to a recyclable paper pallet, having tubes with slots where elongated runners engage, being the same totally rigid to support loads.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,890,437 refers to a collapsible pallet with rectangular support blocks and reinforcing slats.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,533,121 B1 refers to a bag pallet structure for bulk materials.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,516,706 B2 refers to a knockdown pallet structure comprising semi-circular members fixed to a web, that can receive the forks of a lift truck to transport a load, with reinforcing slats extending through the pockets of the web, so as to stretch the fabric for transportation of loads.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,913,630 B2 refers to a combination knockdown pallet structure as the preceding reference and a bag article container.
The US 20100050910 A1 publication refers to a pallet wherein the fabric is sewed to the two support elements.